


Part Two – Beyond the first weekend

by 5972OltonHall



Series: Serpentus Connexio [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-09-29 22:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5972OltonHall/pseuds/5972OltonHall
Summary: Story summary:Spoiler alerts: HP - This story runs with a time line evolving in parallel with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and interweaves elements of that plotline. It is believed to be broadly cannon compliant.RoL - It is set approximately twenty years before Rivers of London, giving the younger Alexander Seawoll his first introduction to magic and The Folly. With any prequel there are inevitably spoilers for any reader who has yet to read RoL or its companion works. There is some elasticity built into the RoL timeline.* * *It is the early summer of 1991 and a simple visit to Bristol Zoo by Harry Potter, an underage wizard as yet unaware of his powers, had coincided with the visit of a river god as yet unaware of his divinity.As outlined in Part 1, during the visit a boa constrictor was released and assisted on its way back to Brazil with a resultant serpentine interweaving of muggle and magical strands, as the various characters and authorities react to that event.Part 2 of the story begins back in Bristol, ten days after the snake’s escape occurred.Apologies for the delay to an update - drafted but not ready for publication. (4 Feb 2020)





	1. The aftermath (Muggle/mundane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The local Avon and Somerset police begin their investigation into the missing snake.

The aftermath (Muggle/mundane)

09:35 Monday 1st July 1991 – Avon & Somerset Police HQ, Portishead.

Detective Sergeant Alexander Seawoll was not happy, and when DS Seawoll was unhappy the rest of the detective pool got out of his way. He was a good thief taker but, at times, bulls and china shops would seem to be just a minor blip. Today was one of those days. It was bad enough that, with the escaped boa constrictor still missing after a week’s searching, the uniform division had just decided it was no longer an accidental escape but must have been an organised crime. They therefore promptly shifted it off their list, dumping the mystery onto the detectives in CID to solve. Given his Sergeant’s previous excellent clear up rate Seawoll’s boss had therefore equally promptly passed it a further link down the chain to said DS. 

The snake case, however, was not the prime cause of Alexander’s angst. No, his current feeling of general disgruntlement was because of the upcoming announcement as to whether or not he had passed his recent Inspector’s assessment. He was confident he would have passed the Board, that wasn’t being big headed he was good at his job so expected to pass, it was that passing would ease one decision, but create another. 

His dilemma was that he was aware that several of his colleagues had already passed the Board. Unless he applied for a transfer to another force the chances of actually getting promoted into an Inspector’s position in Bristol, or anywhere else in the Avon & Somerset region for that matter, were slim. Making the decision to apply for the transfer would be easy, the dilemma would be choosing whether to head back north, where he would be most at home, or apply to the Met’ and head for London where the best job prospects should be.

As he reread the case file for the third time Seawoll could see this missing snake case was going to be a challenge. He had yet to discover just how much of a challenge it would prove to be, or just how deep would be the scars it would soon burn into his psyche. He’d been back in the general CID office for about twenty minutes since the Detective Inspector had handed him (lumbered him with) the case and, as far as Seawoll could see, it was just not making sense. 

He called over to DC Jennifer Trym and, despite his time in the West Country, his booming Lancastrian tones filled the room, “You free Jenny? Come and take a skeg* at this.” Jenny decided that heading over when he was in this mood was better than the alternative and, anyway, the stolen car theft she was working on was going nowhere fast. She grabbed her coffee and walked over. 

“So what we’ve got is this,” Alexander outlined, and began to show her the few, and rather blurry, CCTV recordings**. “the picture quality may be crap but it is obvious that one of that group of three boys seems to be harmlessly watching the snake” he pointed at the screen and also looked down at the file to check on the names, “Harry Potter his name is. Look, there, see, the snake is is just lying there, I bet it was bored out of its skull, as we all would be stuck in that tank, but Harry’s not doing anything. Then now, watch, see how the snake gets agitated, starts waggling about a bit, and the other boys come over.”  
He stopped the film briefly to check his notes again before carrying on,  
“See, now, that one, the scrawny one, Piers Polkiss his name is, he calls over that fat one, Dudley Dursley, and then look - the glass just disappears. None of them did anything untoward, we can’t even think about doing them for criminal damage, but where does the glass go? There’s only a few people around, the two who brought the boys and a handful of others and again look, Jenny, see how the glass goes and every bit of CCTV kit fails at exactly the same time. We can’t track the snake it’s not on film!”

Jenny looked at him with a smile, “You’re from Lancashire aren’t you Sir - sure you’ve not brought the Pendle Witches down with you?”  
Seawoll spluttered for a second, was about to yell, then realised she was joking, relaxed, and started laughing for the first time in a few days. Magic was definitely something he thought impossible. His bullying older sister had shaped his attitude to women in several ways during his childhood, her argument that if witchcraft existed, and the alleged witches had really been witches then they wouldn’t have been caught, made sense. They had both missed the point; despite the best efforts of the church and state, no real witches were ever arrested, let alone brought to trial!

“Seriously though Sir, joking aside, I agree we do have to wonder where the glass went. It’s not as if people carry a dustpan and brush around with them on the off chance is it? Do you reckon the DI will give us expenses to visit the boys and the Dursleys to do a re-interview? I’ll be up for a run out to Surrey if you are.” 

Jenny, of course knew full well where the snake had ended up; as, in her own small way, she’d actually helped it escape, not that she was going to mention anything about that. She was ambitious. She had her hopes set on getting the DS’s job when Seawoll got promoted the situation everyone, bar Seawoll himself, was anticipating; unfortunately for Jenny there was a snag - she hadn’t yet grasped the fact there was a promotion bottleneck.

“Good point Jenny”, Seawoll continued, “and there’s another thing that doesn’t fit. Looking through this file it doesn’t look as though uniform did any follow up interviews, or if they did do some then they’ve all gone astray. All we have is a few interview notes and field jottings made on the day, the CCTV footage such as it is, plus the logs of security team searches in the Zoo and surrounding area looking for the snake.”  
Jenny then noticed something else that was missing.  
“Just a thought Sir. Do you remember that weird London team that turned up on the Sunday evening, where are their Animal Welfare reports? We have received nothing from them, and they are not showing up in our Inter-Force contacts directory - I think you are right, Sir, it does justify a trip to Surrey.”  
This was the first time in her career that anything regarding her other life as a minor river goddess had come remotely close to her police work, if the trail was heading towards Surrey, and therefore away for her own catchment area, anything she could do, or say, to help steer it that way was a bonus.

13:25 Monday 1st July – Avon & Somerset Police HQ, Portishead.

By this point in the afternoon Seawoll’s temper was at boiling point. Before lunch he’d asked his Inspector for permission to go with Jenny up to Little Whinging to carry out the interviews uniform hadn’t bothered to do. He’d been polite, quoted facts simply and logically, and been quickly rebuffed. A calm refusal stating operational grounds and other priorities for his time here in Bristol he could have understood and would have accepted. What had wound him up was being interrupted by his line Inspector before he’d even begun to properly explain why they needed to go to Surrey and told “There’s no effing money for effing joy rides for effing jumped up junior officers so why don’t you just eff off back to your effing desk and solve the effing case from what you’ve effing well already got!”  
After a startled pause, as this outburst was even more extreme than the DI's usual outbursts, Seawoll had simply turned to the door and, as he began to leave, also heard his boss add a follow up “Send Surrey a request to effing well do it for us, and don’t effing well think you can override me even if you have passed your effing Board exam.” 

15:11 Monday 1st July – Avon & Somerset Police HQ, Portishead.

Luckily as the afternoon wore on Seawoll calmed down enough to get Jenny to ring the local police station at Staines and she managed to successfully arrange for them to go out in the next few days and do a re-interview. 

That calming down had paid off when he received the summons mid-afternoon to go to the Personnel Department on the first floor and get his promotion board results. Not only had he passed also with it was an offer from the Met to take up an Acting DI position should he require it.

When he got back to his desk, still with a rare smile on his face, his colleagues all saw instantly that he’d passed. What they hadn’t seen was his earlier sidle into the Gents toilets and make a two handed ‘fist pump’ accompanied by the triple exclamation of - “YES! YESS! YEESSSSS!”

Luck was on Jenny’s side as it was DC Fred Murray who asked the blindingly obvious “You passed then boss”  
“Yes Fred, drinks will be on me tonight. Got an offer from the Met too – immediate Acting DI. I’ve not accepted yet but, if you ask me honestly, I guess I’ll be leaving soon.”

Jenny already knew he had passed, and that he’d got the offer from the Met, her acting skills had been extended to the ultimate for the last couple of days. She’d had nothing to do with the exam result, he’d won that pass on his merits, but, as for the transfer, after all what’s the point of being a River Goddess if you can’t sometimes manipulate and tweak things behind the scenes.

Unbeknownst to Seawoll, or to any of her other work colleagues of any rank, once Jenny had known the snake case was going to create problems with a clash between her work and river life she’d been trying to get Seawoll off the case. She recognised his talents as the only detective in the area likely to come even close to cracking the puzzle. 

It was fortunate that she knew Ash Thames well enough to be able ask him to set up a meeting with Old Father Thames himself. After just a bit of grovelling on her part, he’d told her to leave it with him to sort out. Jenny never did find out how things had been manipulated but on Friday she just knew they’d been sorted, and that there was unlikely to be anything to worry about. Today, she’d found out what had been arranged and that she now owed the Thames clan several major favours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Skeg – slang for take a look at.
> 
> **CCTV was a fairly new concept in 1991 and what there was recorded to VHS, or similar, tapes. Compared with the modern digital versions picture quality was very poor. Whether the Zoo would have had it installed during 1991 is possibly debatable, I have assumed they did. 
> 
> I hope that any readers who genuinely know that to be a wrong premise with regard to the situation re-CCTV at Bristol Zoo in 1991 can accept the application of ‘author’s licence’ in this instance.
> 
> Date error - Somehow I got the date one day out for the Monday of this chapter. Now corrected; the change fortunately makes no difference to the plot line in this chapter but I felt it should be correct.


	2. The evolving aftermath – 1 (Little Whinging )

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary: Vernon Dursley is visited by the police.

15:40 Sunday 7th July

Little Whinging was one of those Surrey villages where life seemed to surround work, lawn mowing, Sunday afternoon car washing and keeping up with the Joneses next door. To so many of the neighbours on every street it was vital that their lawn was greener, trimmer and flatter than that belonging to the people next door on either side. Litres of fertiliser, dedicated lawn treatments and weed-killer were applied; woe betide any random windblown daisy seed that dared to land, let alone sprout and poke a white and yellow head through the acres of manicured green turf.

4 Privet Drive was rather like every other, box like, two-storey, house in this corner of the village. Their next-door neighbour at number 2, Jim Tilson, was one of the few who dared to be different. This was certainly living dangerously as far as this corner of commuter belt Surrey was concerned; here being different was most definitely not popular with the Dursley’s at number 4. For chubby Vernon, and his shrew like wife Petunia, being indistinguishable from any other neighbour was the absolute essence of suburban living. 

Sadly, although they did not appreciate it themselves, this had actually had the reverse effect. In the local pub, at the tills in the village shop and anywhere else where a group of their neighbours happened to meet up, they were now often the talking point. Unfortunately for Petunia, Vernon Dursley’s obsessive attempts at social orthodoxy through the application of degree levels of extreme ordinariness were becoming laughable. Dudley, their son was also a bully, any local sympathy was for their nephew Harry and any of the other local children Dudley’s gang were seen to be bullying. Not enough sympathy to call in the Police or Social Services mind you, that wasn’t the area’s way, but enough to turn a blind eye when the victims ran into a garden to hide behind a hedge or cower behind a dustbin!

On this particular Sunday afternoon, whilst Vernon Dursley was outside washing the car, Jim was returning from a stress-busting ride on his elderly 750cc Norton motorcycle. Why had Jim chosen the Norton? The answer was easy, solely because it was loud, in fact very loud, and riding a loud motor-cycle was not only his way of being different it was also extremely practical for beating the traffic on his daily commute. The fact it often left oil drips on the red block paved driveway was an added bonus. Nothing too extreme, Jim wasn’t that much of a rebel, but the marks were just noticeable enough to irritate his neighbour, which to Jim was another bonus. 

Unsurprisingly, and unlike Jim’s bike, Vernon’s car was a regulation silver Ford Mondeo. The washing was always done with an appropriate Ford badged blue and yellow sponge, in water Vernon had ensured had just the correct mix of Turtle Wax Shampoo with no more (and definitely no less) than the ratio specified on the bottle. All this was followed with the application of more wax, rubbed in and polished off with a genuine Chamois leather; Vernon never called it just a chammy, that was far too non-U. 

This particular Sunday was also the day that a large, and very obviously marked, police car pulled up outside number 4. Vernon Dursley was immediately affronted, a police car outside their house, what will the neighbours think, what if word gets back to his colleagues at Grunning’s. The fact that two police officers were getting out and walking towards their house was just too much to bear.  
“Afternoon Sir. Are you Vernon Dursley?”  
Vernon, already going red in the face spluttered a feeble “Yes, officer, can I help you?”  
“I am Sergeant Bradshaw from Staines Police Station, are your wife and the children also at home today Sir?”  
“No officer, not today.” Vernon replied, meaning that Petunia and Dudley were elsewhere.  
“That’s unfortunate, when will they be back Sir? As they are elsewhere currently, and I need statements from all of you, I do need to make an interview appointment for when you will all be home?”

Although he was actually expecting them back within the hour Vernon decided that an embellishment of the truth was not really a lie, “I’m not absolutely sure Officer, they’ve gone to check out my son’s new school, Smelting’s, have you heard of it? They may not be back until tomorrow, or possibly even Tuesday. Can I ask what it is about?”  
“Can’t see why we can’t tell you,” Sergeant Bradshaw replied, “it’s just that the lads in Bristol didn’t get statements from witnesses to the snake escape at the Zoo, only names and addresses. Routine follow up, that’s all.”

Whilst this exchange has been taking place Vernon had completely forgotten that Harry Potter, his nephew, was somewhere in the house or garden. For his part Harry had been keeping out of Vernon’s sight by squirming into a space between the garden hedge and one of the ornamental shrubs in the front garden; he had therefore heard everything. After blaming him for the disturbance at the Zoo it had only been a couple of days since Vernon had let him out of the cupboard under the stairs. Harry knew he couldn’t tell the truth, he wasn’t that stupid, but he also knew that this reminder of the Zoo incident was going to create more trouble in the Dursley household over the coming days. 

Harry’s premonition that there were going to be yet more problems surrounding his life at Privet Drive was, of course, to be proven correct. What he wasn’t to know was that the snake escape was not to be a direct part of it, at least not in the short term as far as he was directly concerned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Date error - Somehow I got the date one day out for the Monday of chapter one and then got it wrong based on using that error. Now corrected; the change fortunately makes no difference to the plot line but I felt it should be correct.


	3. The evolving aftermath – 2 (Mostly law enforcement)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With assistance from several of the Rivers the manipulation of Alex Seawoll away from Bristol into his new post with the Metropolitan Police proceeds. Unknown to all involved this is just the lull before the gathering storm.

6am, Monday, 22nd July. Kingston upon Thames Police Station.

For Alex’ Seawoll the personal aspects surrounding his leaving of Bristol had gone well. Obviously the giving in of notice on his Bristol flat had been easy enough, and despite what had proven to be an unexpectedly accelerated timetable to his departure, finding a new one in Kingston upon Thames had also been surprisingly easy. Within an hour of telephoning London with the confirmation he was taking up the offered appointment he was phoned back with the news that if he also wanted his predecessors flat, still fully furnished, he had first refusal. 

If he’d really thought through how this easy departure was working out he would have noted that it was all proving to be far too easy. As just one example the behaviour of his landlord was unusual, she had not insisted on being paid for all the eight weeks that his tenancy agreement demanded as a notice period, letting him go with just the three he’d needed, nor had she bothered with a property inspection before returning his deposit. 

Conversely the police related details of Seawoll’s promotion had, from his perspective, hardly been a walk in the park due to the hassle required to clear up, or realocate, his outstanding cases. Of these, and despite Jenny Trym’s help, it was most notably the dratted missing, or stolen, snake case that was creating the most difficulties. As it was, even when he’d signed out from his final Avon & Somerset shift on Friday last week, the local police up in Surrey had still not managed to get an interview recorded with the Dursley group. It had been uncanny; so far whenever the police had set it up something had unexpectedly cropped up to prevent it taking place. This had encompassed two instances of sudden illness (firstly the witness Peirs Polkiss and then Surrey’s Sergeant Bradshaw) plus Vernon Dursley being called for Jury service.

For Seawoll the last straw had been reached last Thursday afternoon when word came through that the Surrey officers had been called away by radio to deal with a serious motorway pile-up just as they’d knocked on the door at 4 Privet Drive to begin getting the statements! For Jenny Trym this news from Surrey was success achieved; Bristol CID still had overall control of the case, their best detective Alex Seawoll had left for pastures new, all of course meaning that the likelihood of it all just fading away and being dismissed as “just one of those mysterious things that happens” was the new favourite. When a river God puts in a fix, everything really does get fixed!

Seawoll was also somewhat surprised to learn that the station he’d been allocated to was suburban Kingston upon Thames. He had been anticipating one of the inner-City Boroughs with a high crime rate and no volunteers to take up the fight. It was, he discovered, the case that relatively crime free Kingston was seen as a backwater to career progression – apparently the way forward, for a young and ambitious Met Cop seeking a rapid promotion, was to get into the thick of it these days and get their arrest rates up. 

To get those arrest rates up required being stationed somewhere with a massive crime rate, and not being too punctilious about who your CID team were fitting-up with which drug or drink fuelled crime. Half the time those caught had done several serious somethings anyway and couldn’t remember if what they were being accused of this time was one of those they’d actually done! If the promotion chasing copper could add a few TICs* into the mix as well, all the better. That of course was the way forward for the one’s bothering to fight crime, in all ranks, top to bottom, central London coppering was also rife with the taking of bungs to look the other way.**

Seawoll was not that type of copper, he wanted the right criminal done for the right crime. He also felt that his London colleagues did not understand the levels of crime he and his colleagues had been dealing with in Bristol. He felt they were guessing from the name that the Avon and Somerset force area was all about policing rural slumber; that his background would have been nothing but occasional sheep rustling, speeding tickets and the odd Friday night pub punch-up. Although he didn’t know it, the reality was that the potential for interference by the river gods, the actions that had actually achieved getting him shifted out of Bristol, was restricted to the Thames above Teddington Lock.*** He was lucky that Kingston was both just inside the Met force area and located upstream of the lock; he’d therefore got what he was given due to circumstances completely unknown to him.

On this particular Monday morning therefore Alex Seawoll, now with the rank of Acting Detective Inspector, was being introduced to the Kingston CID team at the morning case progression briefing at the start of his first shift working for the Metropolitan Police.

* * *

Elsewhere too this Monday appeared to be just the start point for yet another routine week. The Ministry of Magic, in their bucolic and cumbersome way were still assessing the implications of the use of unknown magic to spirit away the snake, and for them this was also just another morning within that process. As for Avon & Somerset, they still had the case on their books, albeit the local Inspector in charge of CID had on Friday (immediately after Alex Seawoll had left) downgraded its importance, whilst a 100 miles to the west the Surrey Police (having not been advised from Bristol to give it up) were still hoping to get a statement out of the Dursley, Potter and Polkiss group. 

10:45 am, Monday, 22nd July – Jenny’s bathroom, Clifton, Bristol.

Back in Bristol Jenny Trym was on the first day of a full week off duty and enjoying the rest. She’d run a bath and was thinking about the fact the snake case appeared to have raised the possibility she had a cousin she wasn’t aware of. She felt this week was a time to begin the search for this relative and discover whether she’d got a boy or girl cousin. Her first port of call would be visiting her aunt, Sebrina, goddess of the River Severn, and locally the most powerful of the river deities located in the South West.

Of course, what neither Jenny nor Alex’ know at this point is that this is the last week of calm before a magical storm erupts. That Philippe the snake had been helped to escape following his release had been just the beginning, an incidental sideshow surrounding and partially masking the true significance of the event, that had been the involvement of Harry Potter, ‘The boy who lived”. Knowing nothing about the wizarding world Jenny thought she’d manipulated Alex away from involvement in the supernatural, Alex’ that he’d escaped from the weird bollocks that, the more he thought about it, seemed to have surrounded that effing snake’s release. In reality, by pushing Alex Seawoll out into the west London suburbs, Jenny had unknowingly moved him back into play.

7:45am, Tuesday 23nd July - 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

The first invitation letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrives for Harry Potter and is immediately confiscated, and later burnt, by Vernon Dursley. Despite his hatred of anything out of the ordinary Vernon recognises the Hogwarts crest as the same one that had been on the letter Albus Dumbledore had left with the orphaned Harry Potter nine and a half years earlier. As the sister of a former Hogwarts student, Harry’s murdered mother Lilly Potter, Petunia Dursley also knew all about the existence of Hogwarts school and what it meant. Harry, the untrained wizard and intended recipient of the letter was completely ignorant of the letter’s purpose.

7:45am, Wednesday 24rd July - 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

Even though Harry had now been moved from the cupboard under the stairs into Dudley’s second bedroom Hogwarts somehow knew of this move. A follow up Hogwarts letter arrives in the post for Harry, this time addressed to him at the smallest bedroom. This is again confiscated and destroyed by Vernon.

6:00am, Thursday, 25th July - 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

Harry wakes up extra early having set his alarm clock ready to make what is to prove a hopeless attempt to sneak out of the house. His aim was to get out before Vernon got up so that he could receive his mail later in the morning directly from the postman. The attempt ends in immediate failure as Vernon had second guessed Harry’s intent, he had got up even earlier than Harry and was lying down in the hall. Harry’s attempt at escape ended up in ignominious failure when he tripped over his uncle’s body. 

Vernon, later, again, successfully confiscated and destroyed the three letters for Harry, which had managed to make a normal muggle mail delivery. To compound the issue, and after they had been received, Vernon began to really lose the plot nailling up the family letterbox.

07:45, Friday, 26th July - 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging

This time twelve Hogwarts letters were delivered addressed to Harry. Whatever method of delivery Hogwarts had turned to in order get the letters through it had worked. Letters were discovered in various places in the house, some had even arrived through the downstairs toilet window! Unfortunately for Harry, Vernon still managed to get to all the letters before he did; they were again confiscated and burnt, unopened.

The morning, Saturday, 27th July - 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging

The stream of mail being sent to Harry at 4 Privet Drive intensifies as Hogwarts again attempt to outwit Vernon’s mail blocking. Despite Vernon’s attempts to block them the Hogwarts mailroom has this time managed to get twenty-four letters through Vernon’s defensive barriers and into the house. That they got through to be delivered into the property was a massive success for Hogwarts - sadly though, none of them managed to cross the last short distance of their journey and reach Harry’s hand to be opened and read. 

This time it was Petunia who destroyed the letters, whether or not her food mixer was ever the same again has not been recorded for posterity, only that it made short work of shredding the letters.

Despite Hogwarts having access to the full power and might of magic they were still being held at bay by the actions of two muggles desperate to deny their nephew the opportunity of a magical education. This was not how it is supposed to work, that after four rounds of this ongoing game the score by Saturday was standing at four nil to the muggles was previously unheard of - THIS SITUATION COULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * TIC – other crimes, supposedly done by that criminal, and which the prosecution ask to be taken into consideration during the sentencing process. This is a way to clear up crime rates without a further trial. It is also a way to raise your reputation as a copper, of course if you can manage to fraudulently bundle them onto the rap sheet for “A N Other” rather than catching the actual perpetrator then all the better.
> 
> ** Some author’s licence has been applied. However, for anyone seeking a background to why this aspect is included, three major inquiries investigated levels of corruption in the Metropolitan Police, leading to prosecution of some officers and widespread resignations. These operations were Countryman (1978-82), Othona (1993) and Tiberius (2001-2).
> 
> *** Teddington Lock, and the associated weir, is the point below which (i.e. downstream) the Thames is tidal. Readers of RoL will know that upstream of Teddington the river remains the traditional fiefdom of old Father Thames whilst below Teddington the river has now been claimed as the godly remit of Mamma Thames.
> 
> **** The last Sunday in July 1991 was the 28th in the canon of muggle calendars (fact). However, JKR also adds an error into the mix, her canon gives an incorrect day/date combination for Harry’s birthday, stating it was both 31st July 1991 (consistent with her other works) and a Tuesday (wrong for the 31st in 1991). The outcome is that some on-line Timeline’s give this Sunday’s date as the 29th, presumably based on count-back from JKR’s attribution of Harry’s birthday. As whether Harry’s birthday falls on Tuesday or Wednesday is immaterial for this story I have gone with muggle reality not JKR’s error.
> 
> In correcting/updating for JKR's error my own earlier (now corrected) date errors were discovered.
> 
> Edit 2: Minor textual revisions following a reread. Most significance insert of the marker, accidentally omitted, to end note **.


End file.
